Moscow warns against attacking Iran

A military strike against Iran over its nuclear program would be a serious mistake with unpredictable consequences, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Lavrov pointed out that there is no military solution to international conflicts as it can only increase the number of victims.

“We get evidence to that every day when we see how problems around Iran are being solved: whether it’s in Iraq, or Afghanistan or what is happening in other countries of that region,” the minister said on Monday, speaking at a joint media conference with his Irish counterpart Eamon Gilmore.

The Russian top diplomat stressed that any conflict can only be solved on the basis of principles approved by the international community and established by the United Nations Charter. The international law allows states to use force only in self-defense or when there is a respective resolution by the UN Security Council.

"Neither case is discernable so far and I hope it won't be," Lavrov said, as cited by Interfax.

According to the official, the resumption of the negotiations between Tehran and the Six-nation group (the Security Council's permanent five members plus Germany) is the only way to ease concerns around the Iranian nuclear problem. He reminded that Moscow has been advancing its proposals on the solution to the current dead-clock situation for over a year.

“Our proposals remain on the negotiating table. I hope no actions will be taken that would willingly or unwillingly wreck the chances that still remain,” Lavrov said.

The comment followed last week’s remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who referred to Iran as “the greatest danger” for Tel Aviv and the entire world and added that that military action against the Islamic Republic may be taken soon.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post, citing diplomatic sources, reported on Monday that UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, obtained information that Iran could have advanced on its way to the creation of nukes with the help of foreign specialists, including “a former Soviet weapons scientist.” It is alleged that he “tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.” It is also stated that experts from Pakistan and North Korea provided the Iranians with technology that helped the Islamic Republic to propel “to the threshold of nuclear capability.”

As Western and Israeli anti-Iran rhetoric intensified, Tehran stated that the US is putting pressure on the IAEA. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stressed on Saturday that the UN nuclear watchdog, as an independent organization, should not be influenced by big powers, and added that that such pressures are politically-motivated and lack technical credibility, reported IRNA news agency.

The Iranian side claims that the documents which supposedly prove that the Islamic state had progressed in the development of nuclear weapon are forged. Salehi noted that Americans had published similar data in the past.

Commenting earlier on the US accelerating plans to launch a strike against Iran, he said that Tehran was “prepared for the worst” and expressed hope that Washington “will think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran.”

“The US has unfortunately lost wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues. It depends only on power,” the media quoted Salehi as saying.